Laura Motes – Helping the Wounded Warrior Project

Laura Motes is a former member of the American military who spent the last two decades working at the Athens-Clarke County Police Department. As someone who tries to help animals and her fellow humans with equal compassion, she regularly donates to the ASPEC and Wounded Warrior Project.

Laura Motes

The Wounded Warrior Initiative

The Wounded Warrior Project offers programs and services free of charge, helping veterans maintain or rebuild their physical, mental and financial well-being that’s required for them to live a healthy, happy, and productive life after their professional army career.

The Mission of the Organization

The mission of the Wounded Warrior Project is to help these veterans in need, and to raise awareness among the public, hoping that the latter can provide them with aid. The organization relies on donations, and with the help of these donations it can help injured service members through a variety of means, including unique programs that were built with that purpose in mind.

Alumni and Family Members

The organization has 92,351 WWP Alumni at the moment, along with 20,238 family members. These large numbers show that not only there are a lot of veteran who need help in the United States, but that the organization is extremely effective. Those who come back from the battlefield injured or develop post-traumatic stress disorder need the help of others in order to start life anew.

Laura Motes hopes that more and more people will realize just how important this initiation is, and that together they can help most veterans turn things around.

Sources:

https://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/mission/who-we-serve

Laura Motes – Finding Success In Fitness After the Age of 40

Laura Motes is an avid fitness enthusiast, and as someone who is over 40, she is especially interested in training disciplines and dietary methods that are age-appropriate. Staying in shape is something that can happen on its own at certain ages. Kids, who are outgoing and active, are usually in shape. By the time responsibilities roll in, though, this process becomes increasingly harder, and by 40 when most people have their own kids and a career that keeps them busy, it seems borderline impossible.

Laura Motes

Physical Changes

Never mind finding the time for it – being fit at the age of 40 is harder because of physical factors as well. By that time, the skin stats to lose its elasticity, and building muscle becomes a daunting task. At the same time, the potential benefits are undeniable.

Strength, Flexibility and Endurance

Studies have shown that exercising after the age of 40 can bring back long-lost physical abilities, mainly flexibility, strength, and endurance. At the same time, if you’ve never been much of an athlete, reaching new physical heights is also a possibility.

Preserve Your Muscles

Another unfortunate side effect of aging is losing valuable muscle mass. With exercising – and especially resistant training – you can postpone, or put off that naturally occurring negative phenomenon. The body loses what it doesn’t need, and what it doesn’t need, you usually don’t use.

Laura Motes enjoys exercising to a great degree, and as someone who has been interested in fitness for the better part of the last 30 years, she does everything in her power to stay in shape and provide a great example for her family.

Sources:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/over-40-fitness-by-body-type1.html

Laura Motes – Qualities of a Good Police Officer

As a former police officer who had an exemplary career with the force, Laura Motes knows the main qualities every aspiring police officer should possess. When an officer of the law has these skills in their professional repertoire, not only does their job become a lot easier, but they will be much more respected by the public, which, in return, helps their work more willingly.

Laura Motes

A Good Officer Is a Problem Solver

Top-notch officers are able to solve problems in a variety of ways. They can achieve results alone, doing problem-oriented work, and they can take advantage of the help that the community can provide within the confines of community-oriented problem solving. Whichever they choose based on the situation, they are able to take advantage of their resources and achieve the desired outcome.

A Good Officer Can Follow Orders

A quality officer can work and get results on their own, but they also need to be able to follow orders. Policemen and policewomen regularly have to do things that they don’t necessarily want to, but they have to believe in their supervisors’ judgment and abilities.

A Good Officer Can Learn New Things

The best officers are life-long students who aren’t afraid of questioning their knowledge on a daily basis. It’s important to be open about the process, communicate with the civilians, and listen to what they have to say.

Laura Motes is a former police officer who had a long and fruitful career with law enforcement, working in Athens, Georgia.

Sources:

http://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/police-skills-law-enforcement/2015/07/03/id/652904/

Laura Motes – How to Become a Police Officer

As a former police officer who had a successful 21-year-long career with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, Laura Motes knows what it takes to become a member of the force.

Laura Motes

Basic Requirements

In the United States, the basic requirements include meeting an age limit, having a driving license, and being a legal resident of the country. When these three prerequisites are all present, one can officially start the process. It’s important to note that some police departments have additional requirements, like a higher – the applicant has to be at least 21 – age limit.

Education

In order to become eligible for the training, one has to have a high school diploma, or alternatively, they can also pass the GED (General Education Development) exam. While having a college degree is not necessarily a must, having one definitely provides a competitive advantage over other candidates. While attending a college, one can also take courses that are either directly or indirectly related to law enforcement, which can be another crucial advantage.

Police Academy

Any aspiring police officers must attend police academy in order to earn their certification. A lot of police departments have their very own academy. The overall length of the training is usually 3 to 4 months, and it includes learning about constitutional law, civil rights, subject apprehension, firearm use and self-defense, among others.

Laura Motes took her training extremely seriously while attending the police academy; and those results led to a very long and successful law enforcement career with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department.

Sources:

http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Police-Officer

Laura Motes – Healthy Living and Mental Energy

Laura Motes worked as a police officer for twenty-one years, and she knows firsthand how important it is for police officers to always stay focused and alert.

Physical energy is not only the fundamental fuel for our physical activities and emotional well-being, but also fuels our mental skills. To perform at our best, be it concentrating on a task at work or focusing on listening when talking to a loved one, we absolutely need to be able to sustain mental concentration. At the same time, we need to see the world around us the way it is. We need to be realists, and at the same time have an optimistic view of things. Our mental energy provides us with all of these abilities.

Laura Motes

The best tools that strengthen mental energy and mental capacity are visualization, mental preparation and rehearsal, positive self-talk, and creativity.

Mental energy needs a balance between energy spending and recovery, just like physical and emotional capacities do. If you lack the mental muscles that you need for performance, for example if you have too short of an attention span, the way to cope with it is similar to what you would do when you want to grow your physical muscles. You need to build your capacity to focus by regularly exercising this mental muscle.

Physical, emotional, and mental energy are all interconnected and feed off one another. This is why paying attention to all them is so important, especially if your profession demands all three of them. For example, if you are a police officer like Laura Motes, then you need to be physically fit, emotionally stable, and mentally focused at all times.

 

Laura Motes – The Importance of Strength Training for Healthy Living after the Age of Forty

As a former police officer, Laura Motes knows how important it is for people of all ages to stay as healthy as possible.

If you realize that you need to start exercising, but can’t decide between strength and cardiovascular training, you should simply choose both.

Cardio training improves cardiovascular fitness, mood, and heart-rate variability.

Laura Motes

Strength training is important because loss of physical strength is connected with reduced physical energy, and aging. On average, we lose around one-half of a pound of muscle mass after the age of forty if we don’t do any strength training.

One of the most significant studies about the profound effects of strength training was published in the Journal of American Medical Association in 1990. The study consisted of a group of nursing home residents, aged eighty-six to ninety-six, who went through a strength-training exercise routine. All of the participants of the study had serious chronic diseases. Most of the participants also used walkers or a cane. As a result of their strength training, the participants increased their average strength by 175%, and their balance by forty-eight percent%.

When a person leads an active physical life, they build physical energy capacity, and can remain active for many years. However, sedentary office workers have no regular physical demands. The modern life keeps removing more and more physical activities from people’s lives, from having to wash dishes, to having to walk to work. Today, many people have dishwashers, robotic vacuum cleaners, cars, and all kinds of gadgets that make physical activity unnecessary. This results in the absence of physical exercise and premature aging.

Laura Motes has been exercising for years, and she fully intends to keep engaging in different sports and activities, despite her age.

Laura Motes – Healthy Living and Planning your Day

Laura Motes worked for the Athens-Clarke County Police Department for twenty-one years. She rose to the rank of a sergeant, and has a lot of experience with staying healthy within a tough job.

Laura Motes

Healthy living is a challenge for many people simply because they don’t plan their days properly.

There are a few things that you need to know that will make living healthy easier for you.

First, our metabolism and energy requirements are lower in the second half of the day. This is why you want to consume more calories in the morning, and have light snacks and a light dinner in the afternoon.

Secondly, your body has multiple cycles during the day that last ninety to 120 minutes. These cycles are known as ultradian rhythms.

We function better and more efficiently when we are not fighting our natural body cycles. This is true about working in the daytime versus working at night when you need to get some sleep. This is also true about staying tuned with your ultradian cycles during the day.

At the peak of such a cycle you would usually experience a state of high activity. This state is ideal for both performing and learning. Your perceptions are sharp and clear. You can sustain your focus and attention. This stage usually lasts for about an hour.

What comes next is the recovery phase. Your functions slow down. You feel like you need to take a break. You become inefficient at what you’re doing and you’re prone to errors.

The solution to this problem is simple: you need to take a break. Eat a little bit of food. Read or go through your non-demanding tasks.

The goal is to schedule performance times when you are at your peak and non-demanding work when you need a break.  This will help you distribute your energy throughout the day and avoid negative emotions, which is especially important for people like Laura Motes, who has been a police officer for a number of years.

Laura Motes – Healthy Living and Sleep

As someone who has worked as a police officer, Laura Motes knows about the importance of being focused and getting enough sleep.

Sleeping is the most important source of recovery and energy for humans after breathing and eating. The vast majority of people today are sleep deprived, yet very few of them are aware of how drastically inadequate sleep influences the levels of their performance and engagement, both in their professional and personal lives.
Even small amounts of sleep deficit have a powerful effect on our physical energy, strength, cardiovascular system, and mood. Over fifty studies have shown that memory, analytical reasoning capabilities, reaction time, and concentration all decrease steadily when sleep deficit goes up.

Laura Motes
Laura Motes

Sleep needs vary by occupation, age, gender and genetics, but the overall consensus of scientists is that the average human being needs seven to eight hours of sleep a night to function well.

The specific time of sleep also affects health, energy levels and performance capabilities. Shift workers that work night shifts have twice the number of accidents while driving their cars compared to day workers. The number of accidents that occur during night shifts are also considerably higher compared to daytime accidents.

Sleeping is also the time when significant growth and repair of our bodies occurs. During sleep, cell division is very active. Repair enzymes and growth hormones are released into our bodies so that muscles can regenerate. We rest and grow during the periods of our deepest sleep.

This is why sleep is so important for people who, like Laura Motes, always need to be focused on their jobs.

Laura Motes – Advice For New Police Sergeants

Laura Motes is a former police officer who served with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department for 21 years. She became a Sergeant in 2004, which meant she needed to quickly adapt to the new duties she was expected to take on in the role. These pointers will prove helpful to anybody who has managed to attain the same rank and wishes to do the best possible job.

Laura Motes

Develop Your Communication Skills

You will be splitting a lot of time between your superiors and your team of officers on the ground, so you are going to need to develop your communication skills accordingly. You will have to develop a range of approaches so that you can effectively handle discussions with people at all levels of the force, from your new trainees through to your superior officers.

Become a Coach

As a Sergeant you are going to find that more of your fellow officers start coming to you for advice, particularly those who are new to the force. Be confident in your abilities and recognize that you would not have achieved the position in the first place if you didn’t have something useful to offer. Use your own experiences to help others develop.

Admit Mistakes

Laura Motes always took ownership of any mistakes that happened while she was a Sergeant. It is important to continue your professional development once you attain the rank by learning from your mistakes so that you don’t make them again later on down the line. This will ensure your continued development and improve your chances of progressing further up the ladder.

 

Laura Motes – Tips For Improving Your Bedside Manner

As she prepares to start her studies in nursing at Georgia Regents University, Laura Motes has been putting a lot of thought into the skills that she will need to develop in order to excel in the role. The bedside manner displayed by medical professionals is crucial when offering care to patients, so try to keep the following in mind if you work in a medical role or have aspirations to do so in the future.

Laura Motes

Focus On The Patient

If you appear distracted when talking to your patients, the odds are high that they are going to be less likely to talk to you and provide information that you may need to provide treatment. This is because you will be giving off the impression that you have more important things to do, rather than speaking to the patient. Pay attention and deal with distractions after the conversation.

Establish Common Ground

By creating a personal connection with the patient, within the confines of professionalism, you can have conversations that extend beyond the treatment that your patients are undergoing. This is useful for building trust in the relationships that you have with patients, making them more likely to talk to you when you need information from them.

Keep Thing Simple

Laura Motes understands that many patients will be intimidated by hospital settings, especially if they are dealing with a new condition that needs treatment. By using too much medical lingo you run the risk of further confusing patients and making them feel even less in control. Keep things simple and explain issues in words patients will understand.